Chaim Grade’s ‘Sons and Daughters,’ Chapter Twenty

Eli-Leizer finally reckoned with the fact that his tirades against Shabbos desecrators weren’t getting him anywhere. So one Friday evening he sauntered into a barbershop, climbed up onto a tall stool, and sat himself down. On the other stools, the clients all turned their startled, soapy faces toward him. The dumbfounded barbers, too, clutching razors in their hands, stopped in their tracks. The barbershop owner walked over to the rabbi and, with extreme tact, asked him what he wanted.

“What do I want? I want to cut and shave my beard in honor of Shabbos, that’s what I want. Why look so surprised? Fifty-plus years of being Zembin’s rabbi is more than enough for me. I’m ready to be a sinful Jew, just like you.”

As the story was later told, the Jewish customers, their half-shaved faces covered in lather, scattered and fled the barbershop like little boys stealing apples from an orchard who suddenly spot a guard running over with a stick.

A week later, Eli-Leizer walked into another barber’s shop. Here, the owner argued with Eli-Leizer: “In the winter, Fridays are so short that no matter how much my clients and barbers hurry, they can’t get done before it’s time to light the candles.”

Eli-Leizer let him finish and then burst into laughter. “Some tale! You see, the old fool and ignoramus I am, I was under the impression that Jewish laws against Shabbos desecration were made for short winter Fridays, too, not just for long summer ones. From now on, anytime someone consults me on a question of Jewish law, I’ll send them over to you for a final ruling, you shameful Jew.”

From that afternoon on, the barbers scrambled to finish their clients’ cuts and shaves on Fridays, as if it were the eve of Yom Kippur before the Kol Nidrei prayer.

One winter Shabbos morning, before going to daven, Eli-Leizer peered out the window, surveying the freshly fallen snow on the roofs of the houses across from his. Icicles dangled from the eaves, sunbeams reflected in them like golden flames in crystal chandeliers. The sky shone pure blue, as on a summer’s day. Snow lay in tall heaps on the doorsteps, as if to block out everyday worries during the Shabbos rest. Through his window, the rabbi saw a man step off his stoop with a tallis bag tucked under his arm. The Jew paused for a moment, his face turned up at the distant sun, probably waiting for its rays to coil their way into his beard and ears, the way a grandfather awaits the pleasure of his grandchild’s little fingers tickling and pinching his nose and whiskers. Eli-Leizer murmured verses of Tehillim to himself, absorbed in his thoughts. The men rest easy here in my city, he thought. They don’t worry about whether they’re allowed to carry their tallis on Shabbos, because they know I badger the shammes every Friday, making sure he checks that the eruv is intact, no tears anywhere. A Jew, a believer, knows in his gut—even without a calendar—when the seventh day of the week has arrived. All you have to do is look at the sun. In its shine you instinctively feel the sanctity of the holy Shabbos.

Suddenly, the rabbi creased his forehead and raised his eyebrows, straining his sight. Despite his old age, his vision was sharp. Still, he refused to believe what he was seeing: a Jew, bundled in a heavy coat and holding a parcel in his hand, rushing through the marketplace to catch the bus headed to Bialystok, at the station near the firemen’s barn. Soon came another Jew—tall and broad, in a big winter hat and a fur-collared coat with a wide belt round the middle. Beneath his arm he carried a bulging briefcase as if it were a tallis bag (may the comparison of the sacred and profane be forgiven!), and strolled serenely, head raised, as if desecrating Shabbos were an honor. Then arrived a boy and girl. Their arms were locked, and in their free hand each carried a small suitcase. More than that, Eli-Leizer refused to see.

The congregants of his beis medrash greeted him with some surprise: ordinarily he was the first to arrive, but today he was late. Instead of making the usual gesture to indicate that the service should begin, the rabbi slammed a fist down on the lectern. “In the name of God, I decree upon every observant Jew here to follow me to the bus station.” His intimates, as well as the regular householders, shucked off their talleisim and followed him.

Near the steps of the idling bus stood a long line of people—peasants from the surrounding villages, Christians from the city, and Jews. Eli-Leizer spared no word for the Jewish passengers. He merely instructed his followers to form a circle around the entire bus and link hands in a chain, as when they danced around the bimah on Simchas Torah. The rabbi positioned himself directly in front of the engine. Passersby stopped to stare, curious to see what would happen. The Poles in line muttered angrily among themselves. But the Jewish passengers stood there silently, heads lowered—ashamed to raise their eyes, and yet reluctant to leave.

The driver, a hulking gentile, walked over to the rabbi and addressed him in a friendly tone. He would have to call the police, he explained, and they’d haul the rabbi away in cuffs for disturbing the peace and causing the bus company to lose money. The rabbi spoke fluent Russian, and knew Polish, too. After all, he was constantly dealing with town officials, and he’d lived his entire life across from the market where Jews and gentiles did business. So he answered the driver in a mishmash of languages. “Call the police, do what you want, you can even run me over with the bus. As long as Jewish passengers board this bus on our sacred day of rest, I will not budge.”

The Poles’ muttering turned to shouts. “No problem for us if the zhids don’t ride today!” “Go to Palestine! Go to Madagascar! You can institute your regime there!”

The Jewish passengers began to inch away, one after the other, and the Poles pressed forward through the bus’s two open doors, laughing at the zhids, pleased that they’d now have a roomier ride.

Eventually, the bus company got wise and opened a station on the city’s outskirts. Any Zembin Jews who wanted to ride on Shabbos were forced to trek along the Bialystok highway in order to catch the bus. Although some Jews persisted, the pious of Zembin consoled themselves that at least there was no overt Shabbos desecration anymore, nothing out in plain sight. The rabbi’s followers congratulated him on his victory, wished him mazel tov, and quipped, “Rabbi, if you were able to pull the Shabbos desecrators by their hair and chase them from the bus station, you’ll be able to pull us businessmen out of gehinnom in the afterworld.”

But instead of feeling pleased, the old rabbi sighed. “But how do we pull the crowd out of the cinema now?” he griped. “The three Jewish owners of this abomination claim they leased the hall on Saturdays because there isn’t enough of a crowd otherwise. People go to this circus only on Friday night and Saturday. What can be done?”

“These lowlifes shouldn’t be allowed into the theater on Shabbos in the first place. This way you’d spare yourself the job of pulling them out,” Rebbetzin Vigasia offered.

Eli-Leizer declared a cherem on the Jewish owners of the cinema and on any Jew who went there on Shabbos. The owners, unintimidated, went ahead and opened the hall on Friday night. The entrance lamps were lit, the cashier stood in his booth, ready to sell tickets, but the crowd never came. The regular cinemagoers had discussed the issue: “It’s true,” they said, “the rabbi is too tempestuous, but still, how can we enjoy these sinful pictures with a cherem weighing on our heads?”

The fuming cinema owners, along with a hired gang of hoodlums, besieged the rabbi’s home and shouted through the windows:

“You old fanatic! You’re not leaving your home until you lift the injunction and let people into the cinema!”

“You’ve buried two rebbetzins already. Why not bury the third, who’s inciting you to steal our livelihood?”

“For fifty years you’ve been wringing double wages out of Zembin’s people, so that you can travel to the spas. You’ve become a rich man, but we’ve stayed poor.”

“Don’t we have enough problems and worries all week long—now you’re taking the pleasure of Shabbos away from us, too? Go to the land of Israel and take your troublesome rebbetzin with you. That’s what other rabbis do in their old age. Go, go away and let us live in this world!”

From the rabbi’s house came no response. A woman stopped by to ask the rabbi a question on Jewish law; a young man wanted to discuss a Torah passage; two businessmen came wanting a din Torah; community members sought guidance on community affairs—the hostile barricaders chased them all away with whoops and raised fists, ready to confront anyone. Some distance away stood a group of curious onlookers, conversing among themselves. There was nothing new, they said, about the rabbi waging battle with the masses—with the householders and even the religious functionaries—but for his opponents to block him from leaving his house, well, that was unheard of! What would happen when he wanted to go to the beis medrash for afternoon and evening prayers? They stayed to watch.

But when Eli-Leizer appeared on his veranda, ready to elbow his way through the barricaders to go to the beis medrash, come what may—let them heckle or even beat him!—not one of the gang laid a hand on him. Instead, they surrounded him so that he was pushed back into his house, bellowing that neither he nor his rebbetzin would be leaving until he removed the injunction and let Jews come to the theater.

The barricaders left late at night and returned at dawn, so that the rabbi wouldn’t be able to sneak out in time to make the early minyan. But no one tried to leave or enter the rabbi’s home. The gang lurked by the windows. Not a shadow of a person inside. They tried the door. Locked. Only later did they discover that, in the deep of the winter night, the rabbi and rebbetzin had snuck away to the talmud torah. The townspeople snickered at the duped theater owners. “For half a century, here in Zembin, it’s been a known fact that you can never get your way with the rabbi. And you thought you’d succeed?”

But the huffing cinema owners replied, “Never mind, his new rebbetzin, and he, too, will get tired of their exile in the talmud torah. They’ll try to come back home. And when they do, we won’t let them back in until the old fanatic surrenders.”

Eli-Leizer’s followers, too, begged him to let it go this time around. “These hoodlums won’t yield. Who knows how long the rabbi and rebbetzin will be in limbo in the talmud torah, sleeping on sacks of straw?”

Indeed, Eli-Leizer told his followers, they were right: Some of the rooms in the talmud torah could not be used at all, they were in such disrepair. What’s more, the orphans, who already slept a few to a bed, were now in even tighter conditions, with a room sacrificed for the rabbi and his wife. As a result, the two decided to retreat to the old age home. “What do you think, people? Will the managers of the old age home agree to add two more beds? Heaven forbid, I’m not demanding a separate room. I’ll live together with the men, and Vigasia is willing to room with the other women. Either I’m the rabbi of Zembin and the people obey me, or I’m no more privileged than any poor man and a spot in the old age home befits me.”

All of Zembin began repeating the rabbi’s words to each other. The hoodlums’ hearts turned heavy, and they grumbled to the cinema owners: “That’s it for us. We’re done with this business. It’s not worth it, just for free entrance to the cinema for us and our wives, to cause the old rabbi to catch pneumonia in the drafty talmud torah and die. The world will condemn us, they’ll blame us.”

Besides the scholars and pious business owners, a few coachmen, fruit vendors, and butchers also sided with the rabbi. These stout Jews gathered round the rabbi’s house and yelled at the three cinema owners who still stood guarding the house, albeit without their cronies. “Bastards! When the rabbi tells us our ox isn’t kosher, we don’t say a word! If he tells a businessman to pay a penalty, he pays up like a good little boy. But you’re somehow privileged? All you’ll do is alienate your customers, who’ll stop coming to see your foul pictures even on Saturday night when Shabbos is over. Step aside before we start cracking heads!”

The rabbi came back home, triumphant, and the rebbetzin’s stock rose greatly, too. The townspeople said to one another, “If Elka’le had agreed to suffer these hardships with her husband, well, that would be understandable. She had a whole life together with him, a family, their children. But Vigasia’s only just married him and has proved herself willing to endure all these troubles. She even encouraged him not to back down. A true ‘woman of valor.’ ”

The rabbi’s followers once again came in to wish him mazel tov, this time for his victory over the Shabbos desecrators. But he greeted them with burning cheeks, banged his fist on the table as was his way, and roared, “Woe and alas to religious Jews who shy from battles. Everyone keeps telling me I won’t change the world. But if all these supposedly pious Zembin Jews were truly ready to sacrifice themselves for the Creator and his Torah, they’d announce a cherem on the Tarbus schools, on its teachers, activists, and all the parents who send their children there. During my few days in the talmud torah, the melamdim told me dreadful things about the Tarbus teachers. One of the teachers told his students that the Prophets would have been opposed to the Gemara and the Shulchan Aruch, just as they had been opposed to the bringing of sacrifices in the Jewish Temple. ‘There will come a time,’ he said—this teacher, this rabble-rouser!—‘when Jews will go back to studying only the Bible and do away with all those nuances and interpretations on the Gemara.’ Another freethinking teacher mocked the part of our liturgy where we say, ‘Our eyes should live to see Your return to Zion, with mercy.’ ‘These fanatics,’ this teacher jeered, ‘think all their trembling during davening will shake out a Messiah who’ll drive them on rubber-wheeled wagons to the land of Israel.’ And yet a third blasphemer told the schoolboys that anyone who speaks Hebrew and moves to the land of Israel is ten times the Jew than someone who observes mitzvahs but doesn’t move to the land of Israel.”

Eli-Leizer sobbed, and Vigasia sobbed along with him. The rabbi wiped his eyes and told his followers, “It’s hopeless. If a general has no courageous soldiers, he cannot lead a war. Which is why I won’t announce a cherem on the Tarbus schools. I have no one to back me up. But there’s one thing I refuse to budge on. Any Jew who sends his child to these Hebrew libertines won’t be called up to read the Torah in my beis medrash and won’t be allowed to lead the services, even on his parents’ yahrzeit.”